Cosgrove Hall Films

It was an animated series about a vampire duck.

The series was made by Cosgrove Hall Films, the British animation studio also responsible for Danger Mouse.

It first appeared in 1988 and was a spin-off from Danger Mouse where Count Dacula had originally appeared as a villain.

But in the spin-off, he was given a very different personality.

So Lloyd joined us and proved to be the most amazing asset.

What had he been doing before? Lloyd had been at Cosgrove Hall, a company in Manchester who did The Wind in the Willows, notably.

After he'd worked at Cosgrove Hall, he got a gig working in San Francisco on The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was directed by Tim Burton.

But he wasn't particularly attracted to America.

So when the offer came in from us, he was happy to jump ship and come back to Bristol.

You sort of have this dreamlike fantasy when you're a kid, don't you, of what your ideal home would be.

And then I very clearly remember I always fantasised about something subterranean that was specifically inspired by Mole's House in the Cosgrove Hall adaptation of Wind in the Willows.

Oh,

cute.

Because it's very, very different.

The original Danger Mouse is anarchy in that Cosgrove Hall style.

It's chaotic.

It doesn't always make sense.

It had started on the 6th of September.

It came from Cosgrove Hall, the Danger Mouse people, and David Jason did the voice.

He's a vampire duck who turned out vegetarian because his nanny used tomato ketchup instead of blood in the ritual.

A vampire who lives on broccoli sandwiches is a perfect cartoon idea, and David Jason's voice made it sing.

Gareth Heald, who is watching along with us, says, "I just think that having this animation is great.

Three cheers for James and Cosgrove Hall for starting the ball rolling with the animated missing episodes.

If it wasn't for the man, what we could have had all those years ago." Well, we, uh, we unfortunately, we have to deal with what is, not what could have been.

But, uh, actually, you know, we're, we're, uh, uh, we're, we're, we've been lucky, I think, with the, the amount of animations that we've, we've had and the, and the quality and, uh, and, uh, uh, especially as, uh, the, it l- I've, I've thought a couple of times, "Well, that must be the end," 'cause certain avenues have dried up, and, uh, the very clever people, Paul Henry and co., uh, have, uh, have come up with ways to keep producing them.

And the first one is, how did it come about? And the answer is, my friend Andy suggested it down the pub one evening.

Like, wouldn't it be great if you could animate Missing Episodes of Doctor Who? Because I think we'd done some animation with Cosgrove Hall for BBC webcasts, and he was like, ah, it'd be great to do that with...

Missing episodes of Doctor Who, and it'd be lovely to do it black and white.

And I was like, that's a great idea.

yes, good.

Can you get it out the door by the end of March? And that was simply it.

And it was only like two months later when the guy was like, so what have I spent my money on? To which the answer was a black and white animation of two Doctor Who Sidemen episodes that are missing without the Sidemen in it and done by Cosgrove Hall, who are the best animation company in the world.

And he was like, oh, OK,

But Dreamland.

So a lot of people prefer The Infinite Quest because it has that more Cosgrove Hall style of animation.

But I prefer Dreamland because I just thought it had a bit more character.

I would have thought these would have been the ones that people would have remembered and perhaps voted for.

Probably, at most, it would have been, but it could have run more.

Oh, I see.

So why did it get cancelled? Because the people at BBCI ran out of enthusiasm because they didn't get to make the script they wanted and Cosgrove Hall wanted to do the other one and they wanted to do...

There was a Stephen Baxter script, which was, I believe, a magical retelling of the Daleks on the table, and Cosgrove Hall wanted to go for big robots.